According to the Ministry’s draft strategy on traffic safety by 2020 and the vision for 2030, which was released on April 15. The number of motorbikes in Vietnam will reach 36 million by 2020. At that time, this vehicle will be still popular, but the government will restrict the increase of motorbikes by administrative, economic and technical measures.

 

Motorbikes will be strictly controlled through the strengthening of quality control, exhaust control, improvement of technical safety, revoking out-of-date vehicles,ect In the future, motorbikes will be mainly used in the countryside, where public transport systems are absent.

 

The draft strategy also aims to reduce the number of deaths by traffic accidents from the current rate of 13 victims per 100,000 people, to 8 by 2020, and 4-6 by 2030, through many solutions.

 

Accordingly, big cities will have belt roads to reduce traffic flow inside cities. Parking lots will be re-designed and organized, using automatic fee collecting systems. Trucks will be banned from getting into downtown areas in certain time. Road networks will be developed and separated to serve cars, motorbikes, bikes, pedestrians, etc. Intersections will be reduced. Smart traffic signal systems will be used.

 

Dr. Ly Huy Tuan, Director of the Institute for Transport Development and Strategy, the agency that compiled the draft strategy, explained that “motorbikes will be restricted because most of road accidents in Vietnam are related to motorbikes.” This kind of vehicle currently grows over 15 percent in Vietnam.

 

Representatives of provincial Departments of Transport backed the Ministry of Transport’s proposals. Le Toan, Deputy Director of HCM City Department of Transport said that “HCM City’s transport infrastructure is overloaded because personal vehicles grow over 10 percent annually, while the road system increases less than 1 percent a year.”

 

HCM City will curb personal vehicles, collect fees automatically and increase the parking fee, especially in the downtown area, as well as registration fees of personal vehicles.

 

According to a representative of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Vietnam can achieve its goal of reducing 40 percent of traffic accident cases by 2020 if it can solve two matters: the lack of knowledge on traffic safety of the people and implementing solutions comprehensively.

 

“Japan spent five years to comprehensively invest in traffic safety. As a result, the number of dead and injured victims of traffic accidents in 1980 dropped by a half in comparison with 1970,” the JICA representative said.

 

The Ministry of Transport will collect opinions from related agencies before submitting the draft strategy to the government for approval.

 

Gov't earmarks $1.6b for road traffic safety

 

According to Dr. Ly Huy Tuan, Director of the Institute for Transport Development and Strategy, VND34 trillion (US$1.6 billion) would be spent on infrastructure and technologies in the next five years to ensure road-traffic safety.

 

The money would go into 45 priority programmes, including VND32 trillion for infrastructure works and VND500 billion for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) for traffic control.

 

Dr. Tuan said the goals were to reduce accidents and socio-economic losses, and also create a healthy living environment.

 

The strategies will focus on developing infrastructure, improving traffic safety assessment systems, rebuilding accident-prone road sections, and road maintenance.

 

In a report, the World Health Organisation blames the relentless increase in accidents in Viet Nam on the boom in motorised means of land transport, rapid urban development, and inadequate infrastructure.

 

Minister of Transport Ho Nghia Dung said poor infrastructure and transport facilities and lack of awareness of road rules were the main causes of the increasing occurrence of accidents. "Ensuring traffic safety is an urgent task for society now," he said.

 

The transportation strategies indicate the Government's determination to reduce accidents by 40 percent by 2020.

 

For 2016-20 the allocation for the programme will be VND6.5 trillion ($310 million), including VND4.2 trillion for infrastructure and VND500 billion for ITS.

 

PV